Feasibility and accuracy of In Vivo and Ex Vivo XRF bone lead assessment wild birds: An example with black vultures, Coragyps atratus.

Background: Lead (Pb) contamination in wildlife remains a critical environmental concern, particularly for scavenger species, which are at high risk due to ingestion of lead-contaminated carrion. Portable XRF (pXRF) systems can be useful to evaluate lead concentration of wild animals in vivo. However, the accuracy of these systems has never been validated for living birds.

Intrapulmonary Spreading of Pharyngeally Instilled Liquids: Impact of Nanoparticle Concentration and PEG Lubrication in Polymer Lung Surfactant Solutions.

The efficacy of surfactant replacement therapy (SRT) depends on the effective delivery of active ingredients─therapeutic lung surfactant (LS), specifically polymer lung surfactant (PLS) nanoparticles in this study─to their target site, the alveoli, in the lungs. This study examines how PLS concentration affects the spreading and distribution of PLS solutions in mouse lungs. A constant volumetric dose (∼80 μL, 4 mL/kg body weight) of PLS solutions at three polymer concentrations (0.

Predicting State Testing Proficiency with Preschool Assessments.

Many children in the United States fail to meet proficiency benchmarks on mathematics and English Language Arts (ELA) tests in elementary school despite those tests being related to future outcomes. Thus, strategies are needed to identify and support children at risk for failing to reach proficiency in mathematics and ELA that consider multiple school readiness domains. The current study tested predictive relations between preschool skills and proficiency status on third and fourth-grade state tests for mathematics and ELA using data from 431 children.

Recent-onset atrial fibrillation: challenges and opportunities.

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is increasingly diagnosed early, close to its first occurrence due to: (i) increased public awareness with self-screening; (ii) health care initiatives including population screening and opportunistic case finding; and (iii) increased use and surveillance of implantable cardiac devices. At its onset, AF is often low burden, and cardiovascular co-morbidities may be absent or at an early stage. Thus, the management of recent-onset AF has become an issue of growing importance.

Diagnostic imaging findings and management of osteoarthritis in pigs with image-guided intra-articular injections.

Objective: To describe the clinical and diagnostic imaging findings of pet pigs with osteoarthritis and determine the efficacy of intra-articular (IA) injections in managing lameness.

Study Design: Retrospective observational study.

Animals: A total of 16 pet pigs diagnosed with osteoarthritis and treated with non-steroidal medications and IA injections.

3-hydroxypropionic acid production from Brewer's spent grain with an engineered Issatchenkia orientalis.

3-Hydroxypropionic acid (3-HP) is a versatile platform chemical with wide-ranging industrial applications. This study presents a proof-of-concept approach for producing 3-HP from brewer's spent grain (BSG) using a novel one-pot CaO pretreatment method and an engineered, acid-tolerant Issatchenkia orientalis IoDY01H strain. The effects of acid type for pH adjusting of pretreated slurry, nitrogen supplementation, NaHCO addition, and BSG deproteinization were evaluated.

Simulating the fate and transport of ZnO nanoparticles in a Tidal River: Coupling a form-specific material flow analysis model to a hydrodynamic fate model.

Predicting the environmental fate of engineered nanomaterials (ENM) with high spatial resolution under realistic environmental conditions is key for a high-tier assessment of ENM exposure in the environment. A crucial step in this process is to link release assessments based on material flow analysis (MFA) with the fate and transport models. This paper presents a novel model that couples a form-specific probabilistic material flow analysis (PMFA) release model with a highly spatiotemporally resolved fate and transport river model.

An exploratory study and new model of the role of implicit timing in sentence comprehension.

Linguistic prosody is essential for language comprehension, but our recent findings suggest that some people with stroke (PWS) comprehend sentences better when typical prosodic contours are replaced with list-like prosody. We investigated this surprising behavioral finding by examining the neural basis of list prosody using fMRI in neurotypical controls, finding increased activation in the bilateral posterior superior temporal gyri, regardless of sentence structure. In PWS, lesion-symptom mapping revealed distinct effects: those with left posterior superior temporal gyrus and left striatum damage showed slower response times with list prosody for simple sentences and faster but less accurate responses for complex sentences.

Investigating Lipid and Energy Dyshomeostasis Induced by Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) Congeners in Mouse Model Using Systems Biology Approaches.

Exposure to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS, including 7H-Perfluoro-4-methyl-3,6-dioxaoctanesulfonic acid (PFESA-BP2), perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), and hexafluoropropylene oxide (GenX), has been associated with liver dysfunction. While previous research has characterized PFAS-induced hepatic lipid alterations, their downstream effects on energy metabolism remain unclear. This study investigates metabolic alterations in the liver following PFAS exposure to identify mechanisms leading to hepatoxicity.

Structural Priming in Aphasia: A State-of-the-Art Review and Future Directions.

Background & Aims: Decades of research on structural priming - speakers' tacit reuse of previously encountered syntactic structures in subsequent production and comprehension of sentences - has made substantial contributions to theories of syntactic representations, processing, and language learning and acquisition. There is growing interest in the application of structural priming to assess and facilitate language processing and learning in clinical populations. Yet, little research has explored structural priming in aphasia.

Aqueous Synthesis of Poly(ethylene glycol)-amide-Norbornene-Carboxylate for Modular Hydrogel Crosslinking.

Poly(ethylene glycol)-norbornene (e.g., PEGNB) is a versatile macromer amenable to step-growth thiol-norbornene photopolymerization and inverse electron demand Diels-Alder (iEDDA) click reaction.

Relationship Dynamics and Young Women's Contraceptive Use.

Introduction: Research from sub-Saharan Africa has shown that women's relationships and partners influence their contraceptive use. Most relevant studies focus on relationship status with few considering how the quality of a relationship might influence women's use of contraceptives. This study is the first to examine how both positive and negative relationship dynamics are associated with young women's modern contraceptive use among those who want to postpone pregnancy for at least two years or stop childbearing altogether.

Search for a Neutral Gauge Boson with Nonuniversal Fermion Couplings in Vector Boson Fusion Processes in Proton-Proton Collisions at sqrt[s]=13 TeV.

The first search for a heavy neutral spin-1 gauge boson (Z^{'}) with nonuniversal fermion couplings produced via vector boson fusion processes and decaying to tau leptons or W bosons is presented. The analysis is performed using LHC data at sqrt[s]=13  TeV, collected from 2016 to 2018 with the CMS experiment and corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 138  fb^{-1}. The data are consistent with the standard model predictions.

Phase-Biased Andreev Diffraction Grating.

In optical diffraction, the phase difference between sources in a grating or multislit mask is determined by the angle to the imaging screen, yielding the familiar multilobed diffraction image. Here, we realize a similar phenomenon in a superconductor-semiconductor hybrid circuit configured to allow Andreev scattering from multiple parallel scatterers. Phase differences between scatterers are set by tapping off of a remote superconducting meander.

Correction: Experimental models for developing oncolytic virotherapy for metastatic prostate cancer.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fimmu.2025.

Roadmap for Photonics with 2D Materials.

Triggered by advances in atomic-layer exfoliation and growth techniques, along with the identification of a wide range of extraordinary physical properties in self-standing films consisting of one or a few atomic layers, two-dimensional (2D) materials such as graphene, transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs), and other van der Waals (vdW) crystals now constitute a broad research field expanding in multiple directions through the combination of layer stacking and twisting, nanofabrication, surface-science methods, and integration into nanostructured environments. Photonics encompasses a multidisciplinary subset of those directions, where 2D materials contribute remarkable nonlinearities, long-lived and ultraconfined polaritons, strong excitons, topological and chiral effects, susceptibility to external stimuli, accessibility, robustness, and a completely new range of photonic materials based on layer stacking, gating, and the formation of moiré patterns. These properties are being leveraged to develop applications in electro-optical modulation, light emission and detection, imaging and metasurfaces, integrated optics, sensing, and quantum physics across a broad spectral range extending from the far-infrared to the ultraviolet, as well as enabling hybridization with spin and momentum textures of electronic band structures and magnetic degrees of freedom.

Below-ground tissues of respond to conserved bacterial peptides with pattern-triggered immunity.

Plants have an innate immune system that deters and reduces infection by pathogenic microbes. plants such as (tomato) use cell-surface immune receptors to perceive microbe-associated molecular patterns (MAMPs) and activate pattern-triggered immunity (PTI), but these responses have been seldom explored in roots of other members of the . To investigate the PTI responses in roots of (pepper), oxidative luminescence and temporary root growth inhibition assays were used to measure PTI upon treatment with three bacterial MAMPs: two flagellin (flg)-derived peptides (flg22 and flgII-28), and one cold shock protein-derived peptide (csp22), in multiple pepper accessions.

Microneedles for controlled and sustained intraocular drug delivery.

Microneedles (MNs) have emerged as a promising technology for minimally invasive drug delivery, offering significant advantages in the treatment of ocular diseases. These miniaturized needles enable precise, localized drug delivery directly into specific tissues of the eye, such as the cornea, sclera, vitreous, or retina, while minimizing pain and discomfort. MNs can be fabricated from various biocompatible materials, including metals, silicon, and biodegradable polymers, making them highly adaptable to various clinical applications.

5'-Phosphorothioester Linked Cyclic Dinucleotides, Endo-S-CDNs, Displaying Impressive Antitumor Activities In Vivo when Dosed Subcutaneously.

Cyclic dinucleotides (CDNs) have become popular as immunotherapies triggering an immune response achieved via their activation of the cyclic GMP-AMP synthase-stimulator of interferon genes (cGAS-STING) pathway. Many analogs of 2'3'-cGAMP, c-di-GMP, and c-di-AMP have been developed and shown as effective cancer vaccines and immuno-stimulators for the induction of both the adaptive and innate immune systems. Unfortunately, these CDNs have been dosed via intratumor route, which is not convenient, especially for tumors that are difficult to reach.

Effects of Amino-Substitution on the Gas-Phase Reactivity of Quinoline-Based Singlet Oxenium Cations.

The possibility of generating aryloxenium cations with triplet ground states was explored by comparing the gas-phase reactivities of amino-substituted quinolyloxenium cations to the corresponding unsubstituted cations studied previously. The amino-substituted cations were calculated to have a singlet electronic ground state by at least 3 kcal mol. None of them undergo radical reactions.

Association between Trust of Researchers and Willingness to Participate in Alzheimer's Disease Biomarker Research.

Introduction: The study examined the relationship between trust of researchers in research naïve participants, including those at higher risk, and interest in Alzheimer's disease and related dementia (ADRD) biomarker research participation.

Methods: A cohort of 399 community-dwelling older adults completed a survey about their trust of researchers and interest in participating in ADRD biomarker research.

Results: After controlling for sociodemographics and knowledge of ADRD, higher trust of researchers was associated with lower levels of hesitancy to participate in ADRD biomarker and neuroimaging studies ( < 0.

Plasticity induced loss of apnea alarm through repeated apneas: A proposed mechanism for respiratory sudden death.

We are inspired by two observations and questions. 1) In most cases of sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP) patients experience a fatal failure to breathe which onsets a few minutes after a seizure, suggested to be of neural (not mechanical) origin. If respiration is such a critical behavior, then how could the architecture of the respiratory neural circuit ever allow an extended apnea to persist until it is fatal, especially in low-risk cases (first lifetime seizure) in which the patient's brain is not measurably impaired in any way? 2) Emerging data continue to support the theory that there are often concrete, measurable physiological changes in a patient prior to SUDEP, particularly in their respiratory reflexes and apnea drive.

Use of Cinnamon Essential Oil Nanoemulsions to Manage Gray Mold in Tomato.

Gray mold, caused by the fungus , significantly reduces tomato yield and quality. The use of essential oils (EOs), here formulated as nanoemulsions, offers a safe and eco-friendly strategy to manage gray mold without conventional pesticide application. This study evaluated the antifungal effect of cinnamon essential oil nanoemulsion (EONE) against in vitro, and its impact on plant physiological health and gray mold suppression in planta.